Painted Rock Cactus

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I think this is a great idea. If you have the skill or pattern/ design to make it as detailed as this one is. Great idea for a rock garden, literally.

Katie Loves …a plant for those who lack any sort of green thumb. Paint smooth stones to look like cacti and nestle into a planter just the same. No watering or sunlight required.  Photo: El Nido de Mama Gallina

Source: A Painted Plant For The Gardening Impaired

Pumpkin City: Early for Halloween

Pumpkin city

Pumpkin city

I especially like this idea. I could make a row of them like a candlelit village. I’d rather have these than a scary jack-o-lantern face.

Pumpkin City

A passel of pumpkins provides the backdrop for a quaint village scene.

Step 1: Carve a hole in the bottom of each pumpkin, scoop out the pulp, and return the cut pieces.

Step 2: Print out these house templates. Resize on a copier, scaling the images to fit your pumpkins.

Step 3: Cut out stencils as directed on the templates and affix to pumpkins with masking tape. Trace on the designs with a felt-tip pen.

Step 4: Remove stencils, then carefully carve along the drawn lines of the houses’ windows with an X-Acto knife. Fill in the designs using a fine-tip brush and black flat acrylic paint; let dry. Affix a battery-operated votive candle in the base of each pumpkin with adhesive putty.

Read more: Country Living

Flower Blossom Cookies


These will cheer you up for Spring. Still more snow here in Barrie today. But I did find these in a flyer at the grocery store yesterday.

Flower Blossom Cookies
Ingredients

1 cup [250 mL] butter, softened
1/2 cup [125 mL] sugar
1 egg
1 can [300 mL] Low Fat Sweetened Condensed Milk
2 tsp [10 mL] vanilla
4 1/2 cups [1.1 L] All Purpose Flour
1/2 tsp [2 mL] baking powder
50 lollipop sticks

GLAZE
3 cups [750 mL] icing sugar
4-6 tbsp [60-90 mL] water

food colouring (optional)

Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C). Grease or line baking sheets with parchment paper.

COOKIES:

Cream butter and sugar until well combined. Add egg, condensed milk and vanilla and mix until smooth. Mix in remaining dry ingredients.

Divide dough into 4 pieces. On a lightly floured surface roll each piece to a ¼” (5 mm) thickness. Cut out flower shapes with 2”- 3” (5 cm-7.6 cm) floured cookie cutters and place on prepared baking sheets. Place lollipop stick underneath cookie, lightly pressing dough onto the stick. Gather up scraps and repeat with remaining dough.

Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until beginning to colour. Cool on racks.

GLAZE:

Combine icing sugar with water. Brush a thin coating of glaze over cookies. Allow to dry for 10 minutes. Divide remaining glaze into small containers. If you run out just make a bit more. Add different food colouring to each container. Using a small paint brush, paint each cookie any way you like.

TIPS:
• Sprinkle on decorations such as coloured sugar or sprinkles while the glaze is still wet. They will dry and stick to the cookies.
• Wrap stems of cookies with tissue and ribbon to make a bouquet.

Makes 50 cookies

Near the Town of Primrose

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This house is only boarded on the lower level. One of the upper windows is smashed, both panes of the glass. Other than that it is just neglected looking. Too bad it is likely to be pulled down so something else can go up. It is a busy intersection, on #89. But already covered by enough restaurants I would think.

One thing I noticed and wished I could have dug up were some very scarlet and very deep neon pink sweet williams. There wasn’t much else there remaining of the garden. Tons of weeds and only one groundhog (or some other rodent-ish creature) hole in the yard.

Rural Ruins – by Laura (me).

Suspense and beauty in torn brick, shattered glass, mouldering wood and old craftsmanship, weathering, falling into ruin.

Relinquished by those who made them and neglected by those who could reuse them. Now just an old house in the way in a world of strangers.

Wooden sheds and barns grey with age lean against the Earth waiting to fall into the dirt they grew out of.

Garden perennials struggle in the lawn poked by groundhog holes, roof shingles, glass, bricks and wildflowers.

History and life forgotten in each dusty, spidered window pane, each strongly holding brick and each door with crackled paint.

Mystery shines at the partially open doorway. A touch of things that once were. A whisper of things inside with rotting floors and peeling paint.

Rain, sun, wind and snow the house stands, holding itself up, majestic, keeping it’s secrets. A home to only the wild creatures now.

Customer Service Abuse

It was Thursday… I don’t think I had this many people spazzing and yelling at me even when I was a telemarketer. The real joke is that these people called me for help. However, the joke is on them. I didn’t really try to help any of the real jerks. Why should I? Let them just stew in their own juices with phones, TV and Internet that don’t work. If you can’t talk to me like an adult go suck your thumb in some dark corner and leave the grown ups alone.

I was sitting, waiting for the bus to get home tonight and I felt like one raw nerve. I had to think about something else to keep from crying. My eye sockets feel like dried, raw, paint from looking at the computer screen all day and trying to read the fine print in instructions and guides for those who don’t want to do it for themselves. That part I don’t mind and I even understand. I don’t like reading the manual either. But the people who rant and rave will get nothing but someone who listens and waits for the best way to get rid of them as quickly as possible.

I had an email to write about abuse for a blog event today. I guess I’ve done it. I’d add other forms of day to day abuse we may or may not think of. Road rage being one. what is so wrong with people that they take out problems and frustrations on someone else to the extent that they leave another person (a bystander most often) bleeding and crying in pain??? Get a grip for your own sake. That person you just screamed at might see you walking to the bus and not think twice about knocking you down just as easily as you knocked them down on the phone.

Plus… you stupid bastards… bet you never thought about the fact that I’ve got your account information on my screen. I can see your phone number, your cell number, your mailing/ street address and very often your credit card and social insurance number too. Think twice before you open your mouth! You’re the one with your bare ass hanging out as far as I’m concerned.

So, the moral of the story is… next time you want to scream at someone over the phone SHUT YOUR MOUTH really tight, hold your nose and count to ten, or thirty, or whatever it takes. Don’t abuse someone just cause they seem to be so far away and such a safe bet over the phone. I’ve got you like a little bug under a microscope. When the shoe hits you won’t even know where it came from.

Don’t abuse customer service people. We CAN fight back, if we choose to do so.

Now… because I’m still feeling stressed and pissed off… one final word… fuckwad! It just had to be said. I have no idea what it really means it just feels right.

Just Do It…. Then Say No.

Amelia Earhart – “The most effective way to do it, is to do it.”

I’m going to get back into the swing of things soon. I have some interesting news about at least one thing (even though I’m likely the only one who has a lot of interest in it). I’ve been to a few more old, abandoned places.

I miss my blog and all the junk drawer stuff I have been keeping here. I miss reading your blogs (you know who you are) too. My computer is back up but we are expecting a guy to come paint the inside of the house this weekend (cross fingers) and then I can actually move furniture where I want it and begin to feel I actually live here.